For developers of RIAs (rich Internet applications), Adobe's announcement that Google and Yahoo will soon be able to index text within Flash movies should come as welcome news. Until now, Flash files have been black boxes; as binary files, search indexers could no more extract textual information from them than from JPEGs or PNGs. This first stab at Flash search still sounds somewhat primitive, but it raises an issue of importance to all Internet application developers. Given the growing number of data types and file formats being transmitted over HTTP and the increasing complexity of the applications that make use of them, is today's Web really still the Web? Or is it morphing into something else? How can we ensure that today's Web apps offer enough capabilities and flexibility to make Web 2.0 worthy of its name?
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]